Times Defends Paywall As New Sites Unveiled
11:58pm UK, Tuesday May 25, 2010
The editor of the Times newspaper has defended a move to charge for content as vital to secure the future of the business.
The Times believes its content is worth paying for
James Harding told Sky News that next month’s introduction of a £1-a-day or £2-a-week fee would keep the paper’s journalism on a sure footing and improve the product.
His positive comments came as the Times and Sunday Times unveiled preview versions of their new websites – but were immediately undermined by a wide-ranging digital trends survey which concluded that a paid-content business model was not likely to succeed.
Mr Harding said: “If we do not figure out a way of creating a sustainable footing for the journalism of the Times… we are going to see the investment we make just disappear.
“We will not be able to keep our reporters in Afghanistan or Iraq – this week we sent someone to the Gulf of Mexico to see what the (Deepwater Horizon) oil spill was really doing there – that kind of investment in journalism, we simply will not be able to make.
“When you look at the common approach at the moment, which is just giving away your journalism for free and treating it as worthless, we do not think that is sustainable.”
News International – owner of the Times and the largest shareholder in BSkyB, owner of Sky News – is the first massive group to charge for its content.
Rupert Murdoch, head of News Corporation, which in turn owns News International, has argued it is unfair that the content of his titles should be taken and distributed for free by other websites.
But a newly released report from media law firm Wiggin and Entertainment Media Research found that a paywall was “probably a flawed business model”.
Speaking on Jeff Randall Live, Wiggin partner Alexander Ross told Sky’s Anna Jones: “I think the problem is that selling subscriptions on-line is proving a large problem for any media industry.
“People really are not prepared to pay a subscription – they are prepared to pay on a one-off basis.”
The survey of 1,500 active on-line consumers showed that only 10% of readers would visit a news site which charged a fee equal to that proposed by News International.
But this figure fits with what is believed to be News International’s projection of a 90% loss of traffic compared to the Timesonline site.
Mr Ross told Anna Jones: “If (Mr Murdoch’s) done his figures properly, it may be that on that 10% of business, on those figures, he is able to break even.
“It’s possible that secretly other newspaper editors are breathing a sigh of relief and hoping that Rupert Murdoch is right, in which case I suspect that others may well follow.
“But regional newspapers have tried it and failed.”
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Submited at Wednesday, May 26th, 2010 at 12:00 am on Business by blum
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